Maybehurtforever, thank you. We’re all in a lot of pain here and I should do everything I can (within my own fallen human limits) to avoid adding to the burden.
You imply you were doing your wife some kind of favor as an attractive middle aged man who was still attracted to his similarly aged wife, something she should have had the strategic sense to be grateful for.
I did want to clarify here that was not my intent. More explicitly what I actually feel is we were supposed to be doing each other a favor. Or more accurately, we were supposed to be honoring our mutual commitment and looking forward to elder years when we could look at each other with gratitude for a life well lived. This is part of the “bargain” of marriage ( and yes it’s a bargain). Two people joining together and giving up things in exchange for other things.
“Bargain” is part of the meaning of “covenant.” 1 Corinthians 7 gives a very good template for how this can and should practically work (even if you aren’t Christian and don’t believe in God) saying that a wife gives her husband authority over her body, and a husband gives his wife authority over his body in a mutual exchange. You literally give up your own autonomy over your body in a faithful marital covenant. If waywards actually honored a traditional covenant, they would never cheat because they would understand their bodies belonged to their spouses. Instead of the more modern view of two people making a convenient business and baby-making “to do list” arrangement, in the traditional way of seeing it you are supposed to “melt in” to your spouse in a state of constant giving (obviously understanding this won’t be perfectly lived out all the time). It is a practical, passionate and spiritual way of understanding the covenant all at the same time.
When someone doesn’t live up, or “love up” to their end of the bargain, it is broken.
Yes, to your point I do believe she should have had the good sense to be grateful for a loving and faithful husband who hasn’t let himself dissipate into “dad bod” status, just as I was grateful to have an attractive wife. Being equally grateful is part of the bargain. I didn’t mean to imply she should have been exclusively grateful on her side while I was not expected to be. Not at all.
Only one day before D-Day, I posted a heartfelt item on Facebook - a picture of me and her in front of a Christmas tree. We look a lot younger in this picture, which was taken that very weekend. (The past three years have aged us both). Anyway, I don’t post a lot personally on Facebook. I know that often such posts are just fake. In my case, however, my heart was swelling with affection, passion, gratitude and love as I wrote how fortunate I was to be blessed with such a beautiful wife, a woman I loved and admired. One day later, I listened to the VAR recording. More than a week later she admitted to “one time” sleeping with the OM in our home.
Since then, I’ve been, well, in a word ... ambivalent.
[This message edited by Thumos at 3:15 PM, September 2nd (Monday)]
"True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature."
BH: 50, WW: 49 Wed: Feb.'96 DDAY1: 12.20.16 DDAY2: 12.23.19
